From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English. (He also authors his own original works and transcribes Hebrew and Aramaic text, adding niqqud and t'amim as needed.) Isaac runs a Jewish music transcription service, which will transcribe and set any Jewish music in any language, recorded or written. Contact his service on Facebook or via his music blog.
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Contributed by:
Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Aaron Zeitlin
Originally written by Aaron Zeitlin for the Yiddish play “Esterke” in 1940, ‘Dona Dona’ is a popular song the world over, having been adapted to many languages — often not preserving the original, deeply Jewish context. The gist of the original lyrics, which never state their metaphor outright, is: a calf is bound to a wagon being dragged to the slaughterhouse. It looks up and sees a swallow flying around. The farmer shouts at it, saying “it’s your own fault for being a calf and not a bird!” The implication being: the people telling the Jews it’s our own fault we’re persecuted are the ones driving the wagon. Gentiles will murder Jews, the song implies to us, and then say Jews are to blame because of how murderable our Jewish face is, so maybe we should get a less murderable and more goyish face. But the whole time they’re the one with the knife. Here included is the original Yiddish text (in the Ukrainish theatre dialect), as well as new translations into Ladino and Aramaic.
Contributed by:
Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Yehudah al-Harizi
This is a portion of the tenth gate from ספר תחכמוני Sefer Taḥkemoni of Yehudah Al-Harizi (ca. 1179-1235), narrated by The Farmer. The transcription and English translation was made by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer. Isaac adds, “While Israel Davidson in Parody in Jewish Literature (1907) considered this satire, the imagery of a rooster so desperate not to be killed and eaten that he is begging humans to kill and eat his children instead is horrifying.”
Contributed by:
Moses Gaster, Yeraḥmiel ben Shlomo, Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
Daniel’s battle with the Dragon, one of the apocryphal Additions to Daniel, is affixed to the end of the book in the Septuagint. The editor has here included a new vocalized and cantillated edition of the Aramaic text preserved in the 12th century Divrei Yeraḥmiel (Oxford Bodleian Heb d.11 transcribed by Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster). The language of this passage is an odd synthesis of Targumic, pseudo-Biblical Aramaic, and even some Syriac forms, so the editor’s vocalization is aiming for a happy medium of all the possibilities. (In several locations Divrei Yeraḥmiel uses incorrect Hebrew-specific forms, probably due to scribal error. These are here marked as a qere-ketiv split.)
Contributed by:
Theodotion (translation/Greek), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
The story of Bel and the Dragon according to the text of Theodotion, translated into biblical Hebrew.
Contributed by:
Theodotion (translation/Greek), Unknown, Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
The story of Shoshanah & the Elders, according to the text of Theodotion translated into Biblical Hebrew.
Contributed by:
Robert Henry Charles (translation), Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)
A mytho-historical chronicle of the story of humanity and Israel up until the Maccabean revolt depicted as a fable through a dream vision of Ḥanokh.
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